The First Marriage

There are few subjects the Scriptures treat of more instructively, or even with greater solemnity, than the sulgect of Marriage. They reveal to us its origin, its sacred intimacies, and its great design and object. They speak of the matrimonial bond as constituting a union of the highest order, as the most exalted and inviolable of all earthly relations; and in order to put upon it the most emphatic seal of the divine approbation, they compare it to the union between Christ and his church, and consecrate its endearment and tenderness by the love which exists between the Redeemer of men and his own redeemed people. “We love him,” says the apostle, “because he first loved us.” It is the order of nature and of God, that the man should first love the woman, and that the woman should respond to the afiections of the man. I find nothing in the Bible about marriages of mere expediency and interest. There are such

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marriages; as calculating as an algebraic equation, and as cold as the moonlight on the frozen sea. And though such marriages sometimes turn out well, the history of the domestic feuds that have embittered our world would form an instructive comment on the words, “from the beginning it was not so.”

Among the fiist things after the narrative of tJie completed creation, we have an account of the marriage of the first parents of our race. It had the sanction of God himself, for He was its immediate author. The halls where these holy nuptials were celebrated, were the primeval Paradise, overhung by the clear, blue heavens. The happy pair were the first man and the first woman. God himself was the Great High Priest. Attending angels were the witnesses; while these morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Ancient mythology seems to have had some traditionary and indistinct inkling of this beautiful transaction, when it represented the reciprocal attachment of the sexes as the offspring of the zephyr and the rainbow. How much more beautiful was the simple reality, as narrated by the sacred historian! “And the Q’ib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and hrouglit Iter unto the man!” Adam did not take his newly-created bride until she was given to him by his and her Creator. She was God’s gift, and

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she is God’s gift; it is still a truth, that “a prudent wife is from the Lord.”

It is worthy of remark, that such were the arrangements of unerring wisdom in regard to the human family during the period of their unfallen integrity. But how much more important in its influences upon a race that is fallen! With the foreknowledge of their approaching apostasy, and a far-reaching wisdom and purpose, the benevolent Deity here laid the foundation of the domestic relations. And they embosomed those restraining, conservative, and hallowed agencies destined to act on the successive generations of men, and effectively cooperate with that wondrous method of redeeming mercy which as yet lay undisclosed within his own benevolent mind, and which time, and all the institutions and events of time, exist only to unfold. This great work of mercy was to be a progressive work. It was pre-arranged for a race, not called into existence by a single act of creative power, but that sprang from a common pan and whose progeny were to cover this outstretched globe, as the sands cover the sea-shore. The arrangement might have involved a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes; it might have been a divinely authorized polygamy to the end of the world. But it was neither of these; it was marriage — the marriage of one man with one woman, inseparable but by death, or conjugal infidelity.

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And who does not see the wonderful goodness and wisdom of God, in making this arrangement at the outset, and thus ordaining the descent of the race?

We have but a single object before us, therefore, in the present chapter; it is to present a scriptural account of the institution of marriage and with special reference to the religious influence of the domestic relations.

The sacred writers greatly honor the institution of marriage. “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled.” From the equality of numbers in the different sexes, to which we referred in our last chapter, it is not unnatural to conclude that it is the duty of every man whose condition in the world justifies the belief that he is able to sustain the responsibilities of wedded life, to become a married man. I say, whose condition in the world justifies such a belief; because no man, and no woman, has the warrant to rush heedlessly into these responsibilities, unless, with the ordinary favor of providence, there is good reason to believe that they can be sustained. Depression, poverty, crime, dishonor, mortification, and death, are too often the fruits of precipitate matrimonial alliances, not to sound the note of alarm on the ear of those who never look beyond the present moment. There are doubtless exceptions to this universal obligation to the married life, arising from the employments to which men are devoted; from the disturbed and warlike, or persecuting age of the world, like that to which the Apostle Paul’s advice referred, suggesting the inexyediency of marriage to the early Christians under the bloody reign of Nero. Nor do we deny that they may also arise from those melancholy providences which bereave them of the object of their first love, and leave them desolate and beyond the reach of a second attachment. But they are exceptions only; the law itself is too wise and benevolent a law to be disobeyed with impunity.

The revealed motive for the creation of woman was a beautiful motive. “And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him.” With all his lofty faculties, and all his divinely imparted dominion, he was alone. Amid all the fertility, and fruits, and beauty of an unsullied Paradise, and all the charms and splendor of this exterior world, unveiled and unobscured by sin, he was still alone. His Maker had so formed him, that there were high and holy sympathies in his nature which solitude could not satisfy. The air would be more sweet, the fruits of Eden more delicious, the melody of its groves and the murmur of its streams the more exquisitely enjoyed, if shared with one who, with like hallowed and affectionate sympathies, could maintain a correspondence with him in thought, and language, and emotion, and, with

him, could become the grateful and happy partaker of the divine bounty. Even in his solitude, the first man was created the happiest of the race. He was happy in the tranquillity of his own mind, and in his earthly inheritance; more than all, was he happy in his delightful and delighted fellowship with his Maker. But even the services and joys of a sinless piety would be augmented and more joyous by woman’s fellowship, because it would be a twofold piety and a twofold joy. There would be another being like himself, reflecting back upon his own joyous thoughts, new admiration of the wondrous Deity; another mind uttering its responsive impulses, and at the same time, by its tenderness and susceptibility, exercising a refining influence on his own. Piety may, and often does solicit retirement. Sweet and almost unearthly are its hours of solitary communion with God and things unseen; while its purest and highest joys both in earth and heaven, are the most exalted and pure, where thought responds to thought, and love commingles with love, and praise is in sweet harmony with praise.

Paradise was no monastery. The spirit and joys which our first father drew from religious sources were too full for his own single heart to hold. He would have mistaken his calling if he had been a monk; and that fair and newly-created woman, taken from his side, would have been unmindful of her high and sacred destiny, if, in accordance with the ascetic teachings of a later, and certainly not a purer age, she had taken the veil. Of all men in the world, it is not good for religious men to be alone. The Creator foresaw this in relation to the first and purest of men; and provided him an associate, meet and every way fitted to share his responsibility and his joys. The man and the woman are mutually necessary to each other; the latter to soften the sterner attributes of the former, the former to fortify and ennoble the character of the latter. Nor were it an easy matter to say which has the greater need. The vow of celibacy, either in man or woman, is a wicked vow; and is as truly the bane of piety as of joy. Although the subsequent history of the first man shows that solitary piety may be ensnared by woman’s importunity and loveliness, it does not show that it is not more jDure, more safe, and sweeter than the piety that dwells alone. No man is secure from temptation by becoming an anchorite, nor does he find repose by merely retiring from the noise and bustle of the world. Solitary man we do not envy. No,” it is not good for man to be oHoney In youth, woman is his charm; in manhood, his protection; in old age, his comforter. In youth, he turns from a deceitful and sickening world to her, as his garden of delights, and knows no solitude. In manhood, she is his refuge from the storms which agitate and overwhelm. While in old age, the love which, amid the perplexities of middle life, was sometimes agitated and disturbed, is found to have been all the while striking its roots the deeper. Under a wise and kind ordering of God’s providence, it has become like that which gladdened the day of his espousals; and he still finds that the zephyr breathes upon the rainbow cloud, and that under life’s waning moon, he knows no solitude so long as he is with her he loves.

Man was not created a simple unity; nor yet a trinity, but a duality. “In the day that God created man, male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called ilieir name Adam The one was constituted of the two, and the two were one. The perfect man is made up of twain. Adam was not complete without Eve; when he awoke from that deep sleep, he must have had something like the consciousness that he was but half a man. Nor did he feel that. he was his whole self, until God restored the rib, and he could say, “This is now bone of my bone and ‘flesh of my flesh.” Thus do the Scriptures honor the marriage bond. The name of the married pair becomes one; their rights and privileges, their hearts, their persons are one. Nothing may sever them but the blow which dissolves the union of the body and the soul. “Therefore shall a man leave hia father and mother, and cleave unto his wife and they twain shall be one flesh.”

As we before intimated, there are great moral reasons for this arrangement. What are these reasons, and how much importance is to be attached to them, and to what extent may they be regarded as elevating and sanctifying the domestic relations? These are inquiries of interest, and deserve more than a few passing remarks. “And did he not make oneV demands the Prophet Malachi. “And yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one?’’’’ Mark and digest the answer, “That lie might seek a godly seed.” The first pair became pious without this parental training; God was their immediate Father, and they were taught of him. But they wei-e to transmit this heaven-imparted legacy to their children; and therefore he made them one. He had the residue of the Spirit; he could have made millions. But he made one coinmon pan from whom all the rest should proceed, that he might have a holy offspinng and that being the property of one they might be cared for, and educated in his fear.

The object of this arrangement is to preoccupy the mind of the rising generation in favor of truth and goodness. It is no marvel that infidels and socialists have complained of this as an invasion upon human liberty. Why, say they, should our fathers bind us, and we bind our children, and thus make religion little better than an hereditarybondage? Why should not intelligent beings, before their minds receive any religious direction, reach those adult years, in which they are capable of judging and acting freely for themselves? Religion implies the exercise of reason and assent; of personal liberty, one of the dearest branches is liberty of conscience, and this no one can exercise till he comes to years! To all such appeals as this, we have only now to reply, that they are opposed to the whole spirit of the Bible. The method which the God only wise has selected for carrying into effect his purposes of mercy is a very different method. The Scriptures regard the blessings of the great salvation as the most precious legacy, and speak of those as most distinguished in spiritual privileges, who enjoy the earliest and best religious training. In defiance of such infidel sneers, they regard it as the shortest and safest way, to preoccupy the youthful mind with religious truth, and before the Enemy has the full and unresisted opportunity of sowing tares. It never occurred to the writers of the sacred volume, that it is any encroachment upon natural rights, for the God of love to bring the rising generation into such relations as are designed to counteract the evil tendencies of their own depraved nature, and to forestall their consciences in favor of truth and heaven. Their professed object is, so to direct the youthful mind, that as soon as it begins to open the eyes of thought and intelligence, one of the first impressions of which it is capable should be, that the God that made it has a claim upon it prior to that of the Prince of Darkness. It is a delightful feature in the gracious government God has established, that it thus consults the nature of man as a social being; puts his seal upon the domestic relations; and makes use of those ties of blood and kindred, of love and tenderness, by which the heart of the parent is bound up in the child, in order to give it a heavenward tendency. Nor is there any agency so important as this, to be employed in perpetuating moral rectitude in the earth, and elevating the countless families of which it is composed to a companionship with the angels of light.

When we look into the Scriptures, we find several important facts on this subject, which ought never to be lost sight of One of these is, that no jpareiit acts for himself alone. The legal consequences of one man’s conduct may be felt not only by himself, but by others. One may suffer for the sins of another, or be benefited by another’s righteousness. Another may be appointed to stand in his place; may represent and bind him, and entail upon him consequences of conduct that is not his own. Whether this truth forms a part of our theological creed or not, we cannot help discovering it in the framework and various compartments of society. The world is full of it; the ordinary intercourse of men could not exist with it. The husband acts for the wife, the master for the servant, the guardian for the ward, the ruler for his subjects. And it is emphatically true of the parental relation. The mere la%o of nature in a multitude of instances, constitutes the parent the representative of the child;. so that the character and destiny of the child, through the operation both of physical and moral causes, is affected by the conduct of the parent. The first man was constituted the representative of the race; his character was the pivot on which their destiny turned. He acted for them; his apostasy was virtually their apostasy. God has ever acted thus toward the human family as a whole, and nowhere is this feature of his government more distinctly observable than in the domestic relations.

In these relations, this principle is of twofold aspect. The language of his law is, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers wpon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” So long as this law is in force, children will be disobedient, and will suffer on account of the disobedience of their parents; and they will become obedient, and receive blessing on account of their parents’ obdience. And what are the facts but that wherever you look over this wide world, you see that the piety and virtues of parents affect the well-being of their childi*en, while their evil-being is as truly affected by their parents’ impiety and vices? The history of the church and the world reads affecting lessons illustrating this great fact. In the communications of his grace, God has regard to Christian families; while he pours his wi’ath upon the heathen and upon the families that call not upon his name. However, in the exercise of his sovereignty, he may go out of these limits, and here and there abandon the incorrigible of Christian families, and reclaim those who are not incorrigible from the families of the ungodly; the instances of this sort are comparatively rare. And who does not see that it is of great practical importance, that, in promoting the interests of rectitude in such a world as this, the God of rectitude should give this distinguished token of his complacency to moral and Christian virtue, and at the same time fix this strong mark of his displeasure upon wickedness? What more powerful dissuasive from sin, or more powerful persuasive to holiness is to be found within the compass of human thought, than the consideration that the effects of our piety or impiety tell on the destiny of our children? Men who have little concern for themselves, tremble at wickedness when they think of the consequences of it upon those they most love. When, for their sakes, and for their sins, God threatens to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, his threatenings sink deep. Nor is the promise less affecting than the threatening. It is a most cheering fact, that the blessings of obedience descend from parents to their children; nor is the Christian parent to be found whose heart does not respond to this great promise, as one of the most sweet and one of the holiest on the pages of the sacred volume.

We are not wont, as we ought to do, to appreciate this arrangement of heavenly wisdom. In constituting the population of the earth into a world of families, the Father of mercies has formed it of delicate and sensitive materials. It is a most beautiful moral machinery; a “building fitly framed together;” a net- work so perfect that every cord and filament, and all its thousand knots act and pull upon its sister cords, and one is strengthened, only as it keeps the others in its place. Holy wedlock is the centre of these evolving circles; and the parties by which it is organized entwine themselves with all these sacred influences. What is it that holds in check the boisterous levity and bold wickedness of that ungodly youth, who so lately found his joys only amid the coarser revellings of his own sex, and who, with scorners, delighted in his scorniDg? A subduing influence has come upon him, because he is a husband and a father. A new world opens to his thoughts, of which he is the head and prince; novel scenes present themselves to his eye, new responsibilities press upon his conscience, new emotions spring up in his heart. And if he be human, he will not break these cords of love, nor cast these bands asunder. The eye of his child is upon him; and though he himself may have been ever so thoughtless, he would not that his children walk in the counsel of the ungodly. And what is it that has produced such a wonderful transformation in the character of that gay and giddy girl, and clothed her with womanly dignity — and cast a sombre shade over her brow, so that she seeks retirement, and often converses with God and heaven? She has been made to feel that she has others to live for besides herself; because the God of all grace has made her the centre of attraction to her husband and children. She, too, occupies a new world of her own, of which she is the adornment and head, and where her gentle, but effective power would fain draw the feet of those she so much loves from the paths of the destroyer.

It is a truth never to be lost sight of, that in the dispensations of his grace, the God of love does not ordinarily separate the child from the parent. The principle of representation here looms, as one of the great principles of the divine government; and what is more, it looms in the brightness of hope. We see it everywhere — shedding its light npoji the past, and gilding the future. We travel along with it, as the men of other times were conducted by the pillar and the cloud in the wilderness; and we look toward it for days to come, as a sun that shall never go down. When, in the patriarchal age, God was about to destroy the world by a flood, he said to Noah, “Thee have I found righteous before me in this generation; therefore come thou and all thy house into the ark.” And when, in predicting the approach of brighter days, the prophet speaks of a time of which it is written, “I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offsjyringy How often, how forcibly, and with what inimitable beauty the sacred writers enforce this thought, is best known to those who best know the Holy Scriptures — kindling as they go, and never painting the scene in which “Jerusalem is a rejoicing, and her people a joy;” in which “the wolf and the laml3 shall feed,” and where there is “nothing to hurt in all God’s holy mountain:” without reminding us of the altars and firesides of domestic piety and joy, and without telling us that “the children shall be as aforetime,” and that they are “the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.”

The promise of blessing to the children of the righteous for the sake of their parents, is among the “exceeding great and precious promises.” They bring relief to many an anxious and aching heart; thousands have been buoyed up by them, as they passed through deep waters. They encourage the sower as he goes forth to sow; and they shed a calm and summer’s light upon the harvest, as the church looks toward the days of her ingathering and autumnal glory.

It assumes a more solemn form too than a bare promise; it is a covenant with an annexed and most impressive seal. That seal was a household ordinmce under the old dispensation, and it is a household ordinance still. It does not accord with the analogy of the divine dispensations, that spiritual privileges enjoyed under the Old Testament economy, should be denied or restricted under the New. We have the family promise and the family seal. It is still the privilege of parents and their children; children are a part of their parents, and pass under the bond of the covenant. They are no outcasts. They are neither pagans nor Mohammedans, but are under the wings of the same cherubim with their parents. The change in the seal affects no change in the promise; the seal is more simple under the gospel than under the law; but it is not less significant. It is Christian in its form and in its import. And its sweet language is, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven.”

In addition to these specifications, look now at the general scope and design of the sacred writings. The honor which the Bible confers on the matrimonial relation is abundant honor. It protects this relation by laws and sanctions, by which no other relations are protected. How often, and with what solemnity is the thought there uttered, that” whoremongers and adulterers God will judge f’’ and that they shall have their part in the lake of fire? There is, moreover, running throughout the whole of the Old and New Testament this household right; the right of the children by inheritance. It is the right infee simple to the same spiritual privileges with their parents. The whole spirit of this sacred book stands forth, as a guardian angel, throwing its shield over these hallowed associations, and giving them preeminence among the selected means by which the designs of the divine mercy are accomplished.

Observe now the remarhahle fitness and wisdom of this arrangement. Occupied the youthful mind will be; pre-occupied it is, and for evil. How shall the intruder be dislodged, the usurper expelled, and in his place be introduced its rightful proprietor, the God of heaven? There is no relation like that which exists between the different brandies of the same pliglited household, and wliicli so effectually secures the moral and religious culture of the young. What human society is to be, depends upon what its children now are. One generation goeth, and another cometh, rapidly as the eagle when he hasteth to his prey. Before they are aware of it, the present generation are laid aside as useless, or rest in their graves, and sportive childhood and smiling infancy occupy their places, and exert their authority and influence. It is but yesterday, as it were, and those whose locks are now white with age, were young. The men and the women who, when the sun of life has risen a little higher, will bear this responsibility, are now forming their character; they are an unformed mass, submitted to the control of senior hands, like wax to the seal. The impression now stam2:)ed upon it is one which remains. And what is it without those hallowed influences, which flow from the mutual dependence, mutual obligation, and mutual endearment of the domestic relations? Relax and sever the household bond; melt this golden chain, and scatter it on the broad and undefined surface of a loose and licentious socialism; and where are the hopes, either of the church, or the world? Who cares then for the religious education of the young? or who then appreciates an intelligent and virtuous childhood?

Men there are who are the advocates of such a relaxation of the marriage bond; but what, I entreat them to consider, would the world become in twenty years, were its households broken up, or changed at pleasure, or left in ignorance of God and his word, unrestrained in their vicious courses, and never cheered by the voice of prayer? How long before the scenes of other lands would be realized; infanticide become an act of piety; and parents never more devout than when they caused their children to pass through the fire as an offering to Moloch? If these cruel paths are now untrodden, it is because the God of the Bible preserves to us the integrity and piety, the tenderness, and affection, and preciousness of the marriage bond and the household relations. It is in the midst of these, that religious instruction has influence; that the goodness of God leads to repentance; and that his judgments teach men righteousness.

Yes! his judgments. Let us stop a moment, and weigh this single thought. One of the selected instrumentalities in the conversion of men, which neither the church nor the world can afford to dispense with, are those afflictions which, though not joyous for the present, yet afterwards yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Men are accessible to the salutary influence of judgments, chiefly through the domestic relations, because they touch so many chords of tenderness and love. If we have not been unwise observers of God’s dealings, we have found those disciplinary dispensations to be, not the striking and the rare — not the more stunning and overwhelming; but those of more ordinary occurrence, and which, though they attract less attention from without, go on their effectual message to the habitation and the heart where they are sent. The solitary tree upon the mountain top may be riven by the whirlwind, and not a bird shall be disturbed in its nestling, because it is not there that the birds build their nests, and utter their song. It is in the domestic grove, and in the green bower, and when the clustering vine is riven, that these cheerful voices are silent, or die away in the lingering and plaintive sounds of the storm. Would you see God’s hand as it comes in mercy to the souls of men; go to that home of sorrow where the heart-stricken parents are mourning over blasted hopes. Go where the widow and the orphan vainly strive to dry up their tears, and where a sense of their loss comes gushing over them like a flood. Go where the strong man bows in his agony, and struggles in the grasp of a stronger than he. Go where God has cut down the loveliest and the best, because a father’s and a mother’s heart had begun to yield to idolatry, and needed just such an admonition to save them from the pit of destruction. Men read such lessons of God’s love, and understand and apply them. They come Home wnere the track of the pestilence, or the wasting conflagration, or agitating revolutions are unheeded. Yet the effect of this whole class of judgments is associated with the marriage bond, and depends upon the tenderness of the social relations. We may not, therefore, regard these relations with lightness; there is no view in which their importance may not be magnified. The church and the world will be disappointed in their hopes; generation after generation will live and die in their delusions, just in the measure in which these relations are honored, and the spirit of piety is preserved among the descendants of a pious ancestry. It is no marvel, that in carrying into effect the method of redemption, these purposes of mercy should early entwine themselves with the affections and hopes of the family circle. It is a most beautiful arrangement, and deserves the place which God has given it as the selected instrumentality by which true religion is to be extended and perpetuated among fallen men. The great foe of God and man desires no cooperation more effective than an irreligious and ungoverned family; while, as the great offset to this degenerating process, the God of love has made choice of the domestic relations as the depositaries of his grace, and there laid the deep foundations of that spiritual temple from which the symbol of his presence and glory is never more to depart.

Our desire is, that youthful families should appreciate these thoughts. The mutual affection of a young married pair, if not seriously disturbed in the earlier years of its existence, is not often disturbed when that affection is matured by time, and cemented by the same habits and interests. It may, perhaps, be surprising to a youthful bride, to see what a difference one short month makes in the relations she sustains to him who is now her husband. She has been wont to be regarded as the idol; her lover was all devotion; no toil and no self-denial were too great to gratify, and if possible to anticipate her every wish. But she is the wife now; she is as truly the loved one as ever; but she has other wishes to consult than her own, if she would be happy. The change is great, and it is too much to expect that every young woman is prepared for it. She must bear her part in the toil, and burden, and battle of human life, as well as its joys. And it may be she is disappointed. She had treasured up her joys where she does not find them. Her affections and her pride are mortified. The flowers of hope wither in her path, and her prospects seem for a time to be all blighted. A young girl brought up with romantic notions of the married life is very apt to fall into this mistake. And the preventive of the error is found in the instructions which the Bible gives of what a good wife should be. Her sphere is eminently one of self-denying tenderness and love; and not a little depends on her knowledge of the duties of that sphere. If this be disregarded, there may be trouble, and the evil must work its own cure. And if she have good sense and affection, and her husband is generous and kind, it will not be long before the cure is effected. A little mutual forbearance, and she will rest satisfied in being his adviser and comforter. And then she will be happy. They will travel on together, no longer expecting this earth to be a paradise. They will enjoy its sunshine together; together will they breast themselves against its storms; and together will they rove among its flowers and gather its fruit. I have often thought that this is a most critical period of human life; and more especially where the marriage is one of affection. Much depends, in the early part of the married life, upon the “meekness of wisdom.” The youthful pair are not always apprised how busily the great tempter is employed in exciting those little contentions, and fomenting those unexpected and provoking feuds which originate in unsuitableness of temper, and in the many cares and inconveniences of domestic life; but which are soon forgotten by an affectionate and generous mind. “Resist the devil, and he shall flee from you.” This “Prince of the power of the air” would fain blow them up into storms, and breathe into them the hurricane’s blast; while in fact they are a passing cloud. A single gush of tears, a summer shower, and the sky is clear.

The contrast is wide between an ungodly and a godly household. “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked.” An ungodly family, what a melancholy picture is this, here in this world of mercy and of hope, and yet a world so full of danger! God is not there; his word has no place, nor does his truth shine as a lamp to their feet, and a light to their path. The voice of prayer and praise is not heard there; nor do tranquil Sabbaths ever visit their abode of plighted love. The young wander there amid precipices and dangers, to whom no guardian angel ministers, and for whom no Holy Spirit has been invoked; and wander in the broad way that leads to death. On the other hand, the sun shines upon no lovelier scene than a godly family. It is recorded of Zacharids and Elizabeth, that “they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” The blameless pair, what a beautiful sight! I recollect seeing the picture of a child passing over a very narrow path, with precipices 09 each side, and I wondered at the serenity and hope with which she travelled on, until I saw an angel behind her, hovering over her, and directing her to some bright object in the distance. And I thought of God’s promise to the families of his people, and was reminded of the words, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation.” God “blesseth the habitation of the righteous.” It is a verdant island amid Arabian sands. The dry wind of the desert does not scorch it, nor does its beauty wither under its mid-day suns. No; nor do its flowers languish under the western sky. There is a maturity, a richness of affection in those longwedded minds that have weathered the storm of life together, and together have so often made the Everlasting God their refuge, which may not be compared with the feverish affection of inexperienced youth. There is that perfect repose and confidence which the youthful heart cannot know. The smile of affection is there; nor is it less cheering that it radiates the brow wrinkled by time. It is a “dwelling-place of Mount Zion,” where God himself resides, and on whose altars he hath created a fire and a smoke.

We would have these thoughts appreciated also by parents. Parents may be unfaithful, and God may visit their iniquity upon their children. Such unfaithfulness, we fear, is too common a sin. Christian parents, beside violating their covenant engagements with God, are rebuked for this unfaithfulness by the tardy fulfilment of all that is cheering in the divine promise, and by that “hope deferred which maketh the heart sick.” Parents begin their work of prajer, instruction, and discipline, with the seal of God’s covenant in their hands, and under the high commission, “Take this child and nurse it/w 7ne and I will give thee thy wages.” The infant Moses, of whom this was spoken, was then a weeping babe in the ark of bulrushes, exposed on the banks of the Nile. But he was destined to be the greatest man of his age, mighty in words and deeds, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and God’s inspired Prophet; eminent for holiness and usefulness, and the great legislator of the world. When the proud daughter of Egypt’s haughty tyrant, saw this little Hebrew slave, “behold the babe wept.” And she had “compassion on him,” and “the woman took the child and nursed it.” Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones. That child which God has given you has a high and immortal destiny. There is the dawn of intelligence there, which will shine when the sun is turned into darkness. There are capacities of thought there, that are capable of unlimited expansion; and capacities for holiness, usefulness, and joy, whose brightness may hereafter mingle with the glory that constitutes the radiance of the Redeemer’s crown. Yet is it born to weep, to sin, to suffer, to die — nay, to perish, but for parental love and faithfulness. O bear it on your bosom. Impel it heavenward.

Bear it on your bosom while it is young; and when you can no longer do this, travel with it, hand in hand, to the city of our God.

Our desire also is, that the thoughts which have been suggested, should not be neglected by the young. These domestic relations, my young friends, where you have been so carefully nurtured, and which will never be forgotten, are the pledge of blessing. “You have Abraham to your father;” but you may not forget that “God is able, from the stones, to raise up children to Abrar ham.” It is an affecting truth, that “many shall come from the East and the West, from the North and the South, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and the children of the kingdom shall be cast out.” The piety of your parents will not save you, if you yourselves live without God in the world. There is many a man, and many a woman, early trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, now in the world of mourning. Your perverseness may prove too great a trial for the faith of your parents; you may discourage them too often, and tear from their bosoms their last hope. They may cease to pray for you, because they feel there is no more encouragement to pray. There may be a crisis in your history, beyond which the divine forbearance cannot be extended, and parental faith expires.

But apprehensions like these, though they may be realized, are not so much in keeping with our theme, as the more cherished hopes it inspires. You fill a wide space in the world in which you dwell, and form a link in the chain that takes hold of the destiny of those who shall come after you. They are your natural and rightful heirs; see to it that they inherit from you treasures and honors which this world cannot give. There is enough in the generosity of God’s gracious arrangement in regard to the domestic relations, to induce you to put a high estimate upon them and enough that is significant of his grace to induce you to look toward him and them with religious hopes. The social bond should constrain you to become Christians. Both the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.